


red sky at morning

by shadoedseptmbr



Series: L'essai Et Repose [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Earthborn (Mass Effect), Gen, Pre-Canon, Tenth Street Reds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28556043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadoedseptmbr/pseuds/shadoedseptmbr
Summary: Before she was Commander Aedan Shepard, she was just Ace. She'd taken a chance but nothing changed.
Series: L'essai Et Repose [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1937545
Comments: 17
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

They were running late on their rounds, but the sidewalk had emptied out as the sun fell and the street began to shut down for the night. The clubs wouldn’t open until later and the distant traffic from the aircar lanes squealed and rushed sound down between the crowded buildings, with just the occasional whirr overhead from a local. Not too many residents of this area could afford the taxes and fees of personal transport, these days and the public cars stopped a few blocks farther up, in the neighborhoods that cops patrolled. Jay’s route wasn’t a high money taker, just the outskirts of Reds territory, these days. He didn’t usually rate a guard, much less one with a rep. But he’d learned absolutely nothing all afternoon.

“I’m just sayin’ you musta fucked up somethin’ fierce to be back on protection duty.” 

The gunhand guarding him didn’t say a word, just held the door open to the next shop. As she had for every stop, she swept the crowded room with a glance and then allowed him to walk in as she took up a protective stance near the counter.

The damp winter breeze swirled in behind them, jangling the shop’s assortment fake alien doodads, hundreds of cheap chain necklaces on racks that spun drunkenly as he walked past and fat, plastic kittens with waving paws. There were a few plastic snowflakes clinging to the barred glass window, remnants of the recent holiday.

The cashier paled at their entrance but she just coughed out, “Mr. Clare?!” over her shoulder, not taking her eyes off the red enamelled pistol on the gunhand’s hip.

A balding man of about fifty ducked his head out from behind a half wall, lined with closed glass cases showing off the carved polished stone jewelry the shop made most of their profit from, “On my way.”

“Ain’t got all day, _Mister_ Clare.” Jay sneered the honorific into a slur. “It’s always the first day of the month, man, c’mon.” 

Clare hustled out, a datapad and a couple of credit chits stacked in his hands, his own rheumy eyes going wide behind his electronically assisted glasses as he took in the two figures. He ignored Jay in front of him to fix on the gun hand, lean and slouching slightly against the counter, watching the door. “I’m not late. Everything’s here. Why…”

Ace grunted, her eyes still fixed out on the street. “You’re fine. I’m just keeping an eye on Jay-bird, here.” 

“Oh…okay.” After a moment he slipped the stack into a plastic sleeve the cashier was holding out for him and handed the package over for Jay to slide into his satchel. 

“Always a pleasure,” Jay’s sneer had tucked itself back away with receipt, suddenly friendly. “Ace got herself in black with Jader. So she’s back on…”

He stopped with Ace’s gaze locked on him. “That really ain’t their business.” 

“Guess not.” Jay recovered quickly and flashed a crooked grin at the cashier. “See you tomorrow, Ari.” and it was almost charming in his thin, unshaven face. 

The girl blushed and Clare and Ace shared a skeptical glance, the unexpected eye contact flustering the man as he stumbled back to his office. Ace blanked her face again and glanced down the sidewalk before she opened the door for Jay and his satchel.

They skipped the empty storefront on the corner, shattered glass tucked behind a rusting cage of bars. And the repair shop someone had daubed with a splotch of red paint in the corner of the doorframe, a sign the owner had done the Reds a favor with cops or equipment, recently.

There were four more stops on their route, all routine. The owners moved a little faster, seeing Ace and Jay appreciated it. Gave him some hope of turning his take in before full dark. “Coulda told Ari I’d walk her home. Maybe I’ll ask for you, next week, too.”

Ace didn’t bother to answer him.

The last shopfront was already shuttered and dark, despite the flicker of ancient neon around the open sign, just visible between the painted glass and all the sales posters stuck around it. Jay shrugged. “I ain’t real good with locks, y’know?”

Ace rolled her eyes, but she gave a few taps to the hidden locking mech interface, the code easily broken and the metal shutters clunked open. She pushed them aside, ignoring the faint squeal of the mechanism. “Someone bashes you in the skull, you squeal.” 

She stepped inside, letting her eyes adjust from the watery light of the late sun slanting in between the buildings to the gloom of the interior.

This had been a pizza and noodle shop last time Ace had run this route. Now it smelled of mildewing plastic and cheap rayon. The racks were crammed with cheaply made clothing and shoes, plas-coated handbags. A secondhand rack in the corner was hung slightly nicer jackets and barely worn jeans. But there was no sign of life. As she stepped slowly in, several of the low racks to the back were overturned, spilling out across the floor. She leaned against the shelf crammed with tshirts along the back wall and carefully nudged open the thin door with her foot. 

It opened into an office, the fuzzy sound of old lighting still buzzing overhead. The old plastic rolling chair tumped on its side, the fake leather seat slashed open and the foamy guts spilling out and the filing cabinet with the drawers yanked open told their own story. The only other thing was an ancient data pad, lying near the door. It’s screen was cracked and blank. Beneath it was a smear of blood, old enough to be brown. Browner than the fake wood of the floor, anyway. There was a strange smell, almost familiar, just faintly lingering under the mold. Like circuitry burning. Maybe from the busted data pad.

“C’mon in. No one’s here.” She raised her voice over her shoulder to Jay who scuttled in, nervously, leaving the shutter gaping behind him. 

He looked around and realized, “Hey, someone robbed this place.” 

“No shit.” 

“We gotta call it in.” 

“Go for it.” She looked for a secondary entrance, but the loading door in the back of the office was padlocked from the inside and secure when she tugged at the rusty handle “I’m gonna keep an eye on the street.”

The sun was sliding quickly down behind the buildings, now. The light had gone gray. There were a few people up the sidewalk, huddled into their coats as the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. Ace huddled into the shallow alcove of the entrance, tugging her hood up, eyes on a swivel. The old woman popped up as she scanned left for the second time and she almost swallowed her tongue trying not to jump out of her skin.

“Fucking Christ, Des,” she hissed.

“Happened a couple nights ago. Cops didn’t even take statements.”

Mama Deseree was about a head taller than Ace, with swirls and puffs of silver hair hidden under a green scarf and a rounded pigeon breasted figure under her padded maroon coat. Rumor was she’d been a prostitute a hundred years ago or maybe a teacher but as long as Ace had been in the Reds, Des had run a meat and three on this end of 10th, just across the street and three shops down on the far corner from this pit. 

All Come In was neutral territory and Des didn’t serve cops or anyone else with a gun showing. The food was reasonably cheap and delicious. She always smelled of garlic and warmth and was always good for a cuff on the ear, if you talked back. 

No one took protection money from Mama Des. 

Ace had never asked why.

“Wasn’t us.” Ace tried to gather her startled dignity back up and put herself back in patrol mode, blanking her face back to cold, eyes flicking up the street to the one working light on the corner. 

Des scoffed. “No, too quiet for Reds.” 

“Anybody new pokin’ around?” Jader would want to know. Even if the Reds were outgrowing their roots, they weren’t about to abandon them.

“Not that I’ve seen. You eat?”

“No, ma’am, I’m workin’.” She watched Clare lock up his shop. Ari was already bundled down the street. 

“Yeah, I see that. Why you down here, again?”

“Fucked up a carjack.” 

“Uh hunh.” Des didn’t believe her at all. 

Didn’t make it a lie. 

“Look here.” 

“Des…” She impatiently turned back to the old woman and was startled to have a spoonful of something savory popped into her open mouth. “What the fu…” she mumbled around rice and something green and bitter and blackeyed peas and her eyes streamed from whatever hell grown chili Des had cursed the concoction with. 

“Don’t swear, you’ll break the luck.” She offered another bite as Ace swallowed and tried to blink fast and clear her eyes enough to at least keep watch over Des’ shoulder. A knot of walkers had stopped. Maybe making a sale. Maybe not.

“I know Jader’s taken to calling his creepers after birds, Des, but I ain’t one of them.” 

“Fine.” She ate the bite herself and shoved a round container into Ace’s hoodie pocket with her left hand. It was the warmest thing Ace had touched in a week. “You eat all of that by midnight.”

“Jesus, why?” As if she’d ever turned down food before. She might need a jug of milk, too. She could feel the chili eating through her pipes. A square of something wrapped in plasfilm tucked in, too, next to the container.

“‘Cause bad things are about to happen, child. You need all the luck you can get.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An evening at the Reds' clubhouse turns violent.

Jay finally came of the shop, sniffing the air with his pointed nose. “Something smells great, Mama Des.”

“Yeah? Well, Wednesday plate lunch is still 8 cred, boy.” She gave Ace another glance over and turned around to leave, graceful for a woman of her years.

“Okay jeez.” He watched her walk down the street mumbling once she was out of earshot, “Old witch.”

Her arm shot out and pinned him back against the barred storefront. “Mind your fucking manners or I'll mind them for you.” Ace fixed him with cold eyes.

“Jeez, fine.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“What did Jader say?”

“Said to hightail it, cops’ll probably follow us but we’re just goin’ to the drop and the club, so.” He shrugged, “Guess it’s nothin’. Ando’s was always a dump, anyway.”

She grunted, still feeling the burn of chili as she pushed the runner out in front of her.

Jader's club five streets over was the new heart of Reds territory, but Jay didn’t rate bus fare so they walked, on guard, despite being on their own turf. Jay hid it with a run of inane chatter, stopping whenever he caught Ace’s glare then starting up again by the next street. The crowd got a little thicker as they crept up out of the worst neighborhood, the buildings got less impersonal, the cracks of the plascrete were less broken under their feet.

In the gloom in front of them, finally, the glare of the neon sign flickered into view. 

Club Sleek was glittery and glassy from the outside, the spike of neon jutting up into the sky turning the low hanging clouds around it hazy and pink. They were still a block south, at a beat up black and rusty metal door with an old fashioned, oversized, tarnished brass mail slot. Ace watched the street as Jay stuffed the satchel through and they proceeded north.

Reds had a separate entrance into Sleek, just past the elaborate glass doors where a line of gaudily decked out club kids was starting to build up as the night got darker. The beat thudded deeply enough Ace could feel it in the soles of her shoes as soon as they turned the corner. 

They weren't dressed for the front rooms, Jay in his ratty jeans and Ace in her leathers, holey sweater, and hood. Jay had to yank down the collar of his sweatshirt to flash his tat but Nickto on the door knew Ace. The scar under her eye was extra ID, these days. 

She shed a layer of protection as she slid farther into the crowd, abandoning the runner to wherever his after hours took him. The menace of her presence slid away as she shifted into a hip-forward slouching walk through the flashing, scalding light and the mass of slithering bodies. She caught the eye of Kant, Sleek’s skin and bones bartender and he turned behind the counter, coming back with a flimsy cup, playfully gagging at the contents as she took it. She winked at him, slugged down a swallow, and walked on, finding a blank space in a somewhat sheltered corner where the lights passed over to sip her drink and open Mama Des’ offering. 

She caught the edge of Jay’s figure in a flash of a spinning lightbeam, climbing the back staircase to the Loft. Unlit, unlike everything else in the front rooms. Only thing up there was Jader’s hideyhole, when he didn’t feel like playing godking of the dancefloor. She scowled and swallowed the last of the spicy meal, knocking back the rest of the acid sweet drink behind it. Jay-bird wasn’t her problem again until tomorrow. Tossing her trash in the can, she ducked into the employees only door that was the reason for this dark corner.

This room was sound shielded from the pulse of the music and softly lit with old style lamps. A couch was occupied by a long, thick body, one of the bouncers on their break, and Ace padded through the room, tugging her gloves off as she walked to the wall of cubbies on the other side. Unstrapping the hipholster she used on patrol, she draped it over a hook. 

Shucking her hoodie and then the ragged grey sweater she’d pulled on when she rolled out of bed left her in the tight, thin, long sleeved brown undershirt and tank she’d layered on first. They cut just low enough to bare the tattoo along her prominent collarbones; a jagged line of barbed wire, each black barb tipped in crimson, that indicated her status with the Reds. The red leather and thermoplas shoulder holster strapped on over that, and she checked the slide of her pistol before she switched it over and the safety on the smaller backup that tucked in the other side. She barely glanced at herself in the tiny mirror affixed to the back of the cubby. 

The sleeping body stirred and mumbled against the arm of the black leatherette, “Time?”

“Uh,” Ace glanced at the clock by the door. “18:34. ‘S early, still.”

“‘Kay, thanks.” They rolled back to sleep and Ace caught the door behind her so it wouldn’t slam.

She grabbed another drink from Kant and slid back into the crowd, a swirl of shrieking string and drum from the direction of the set up on stage setting the dancers into a more frantic effort. 

Even she could find a rhythm in the wall of noise and she hip checked the dancer next to her to wedge a little more space, one hand holding her drink close to her body and the other raised over her head. The songs didn’t really sound any different from one another to her, just waves of sound to drag the people on the floor from one set of movement to another, shoulders brushing and elbows occasionally flying. 

One of Jader’s guards tapped her on the shoulder some vague, noise blurred time later. The crowd had thinned out a little and started to lean into the blown pupil, staggering set. Ace glared up at him but headed towards the dark stairs he jabbed his thumb towards. 

Still in the Loft indicated that Jader had something on his mind, something had gone or was going wrong. 

She blanked her face and pushed into the cool puddle of light that highlighted Jader’s staged set.

Ace had to admit that, as far as aging gang kids went, Jader was hot. Thin in dark shiny pants, wide cheekbones and a square chin. He glowed in the sort of light he cultivated in his favored spaces, pale gold. His choppy black hair was softly arced over his high forehead and drew attention to large, deep, almost black eyes that just showed the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners, like one of the icons Sister Marta had liked to collect.

He had some sort of accent; he wasn’t a local, but Ace had never been able to place it and he was careful to scrub his presence off the extranet, frequently. Something -but not exactly- like the random European badguys in old vids. Rumors held that his folks were diplomats who got stuck when their country, whatever country that was, collapsed after First Contact. All she knew was that he’d climbed over bodies to get to the top of the heap on Tenth Street. He’d been the boss’ enforcer when she’d officially joined up six years ago.

Tonight, he was sharing his light with a couple of hangers-on, his “pets.” Favorites that he might be sleeping with, might just like to look at, might need to use as bait. One was a girl Ace had never seen with long, dark curling hair and a short silver dress. She leaned against Jader’s legs with the dazed expression of a duster coming down and Ace let her gaze skitter away. Terra, a soft looking boy with ice bright blue eyes and purple braids that reminded Ace of asari was arranging a tray of glasses at the small bar next to the raft of vidscreens. He was a regular and Ace had known him for years. The vidscreens flickered beside him casting weird shadows as they flashed between the floor, the doors, and a few other spots that the Reds held,. Jay sprawled on a low footstool in front of them, not exactly set up like he was was being questioned. But...kinda. There were at least three others she couldn’t see, his guards. At least one who’d earned their red-tipped barbed wire tattoos. Her eyes tracked back to Jay. She hadn’t realized he’d not come down after reporting. 

“It’s a fucking crime to let you on the dance floor, you know.” Jader called over.

“So, don’t.” 

The girl, rolled her head against Jader’s thigh and mumbled, “She’s all red, Jader. She ain’t pretty. If you aren’t pretty, why the fuck can’t you at least dance?” she called over.

Terra chuckled around the straw he was chewing on, measuring out a pour, “Aw, Acey's got other skills, don't she?”

“She sucks like a cleaner bot?” Jay tried to lean into the banter.

Her pistol was almost silenced. The shattering shot glass in front of Jay, wasn’t. 

Three red dots flickered on her chest and Ace rolled her eyes lifting her hands, in Pax.

Jader laughed and waved his guards down as she tucked the pistol back into its holster. “Touch her at your own risk, Jay-bird. Duck your head out into the club, there’re five better looking and way better padded two meters from the door. Ace is nothing but bones and scar tissue. Why bother?”

Jay grumbled as he picked glass out of his shirt with a shaking hand. “Maybe I like the crazy type.”

“I’d develop different tastes, then, Jay-bird, crazy's bad for your health.” His smile was lazy His eyes were black and deep and Jay shivered. "Anyway, Ace just likes to get her point across." 

That was true enough. She smirked at the shake in the runner's hand and looked back to Jader.

He waved his hand towards the low leather bench. ”Sit down. Jay’s been telling us stories. Says you ran into Mama Des but she wouldn’t talk to him.” 

“Didn’t have much to say, just that Ando’s got rolled a couple a’nights ago and the cops left it.” She shrugged. “Brought me breakfast.”

“Well, you do always look half starved.” He had one of the girl’s long curls wrapped around his finger and he toyed with it. “She didn’t say anything else?”

The girl was looking at her with those spaced out hazel eyes and she had to tense her whole body to stop the shiver. “Dunno what Jay thinks he heard.”

“Any clue what happened at Ando’s?”

“Someone got hurt, looked like it started out in the shop. Only thing left was a busted datapad and a blood stain.” She thought about mentioning the smell, the burned circuitry still lingering in the back of her mind and pushed it to the side.

“Oh, hey.” Jay dug around his oversized hoodie’s pocket and tugged out...the busted data pad to lay in front of him on a low table.

Ace stared at it. “Why the fuck did you bring that here?”

Jader shouted at her, “Why did you let him?”

“I didn't know he had it!” 

“Well. Fuck.” Jay was looking between them both. Terra had ducked out of the room at the shouting and the girl had backed up from her sprawl eyeing them both like she was trying to decide when to jump. Finally, Jader flung his hands out. “Fuck it, it's here now. You might as well take a crack at it.” 

Hunh. "You don't want your new tech guys to..." 

"Let's just keep it in the family." 

Ace stared at it and finally pulled the thin pair of black leather gloves back out of the pouch strapped to her thigh and slid them on. “Gonna need my stuff.”

Jader flicked his hand towards the girl, and she stood up shakily before slinging over to a thick, dark soft looking curtain, flicking it back to reveal a row of lockers. One of them was lit up with a hololock and she slid it open and pulled out a small shielded case from where it sat next to a sleek black rifle and carried it back to him. “Thank you, Chicadee. Come here, then.” He turned back to Ace as he pressed his thumb to the lockbox.

She walked over and held out her wrist, silently. Jader started to strap her omnitool back in place and then paused holding the piece of tech away like it was a toy, “Say _Please, Jader_.”

She glared at him through her matted lashes but muttered through her teeth, “Please, Jader.”

“Of course, darling. Can’t leave my left hand without her...left hand.” He strapped it into place, chuckling when she jerked away as soon as it was fixed.

She flexed her fingers and felt the tool fire up. It glowed orange for a moment, running it’s diagnostic program. She resisted the urge to sit down and crack the worms she expected he’d had placed in the program. Later. Hopefully. She hadn’t had her tool on her wrist in a month. There was no telling what his tech folks had snuck in.

Still, she felt better with the light weight of it back in place. She was almost sincere when she added, “Thanks.” Slouching down to the edge of the dias, she set to work.

Terra slunk back to the bar as she started up her programs, fiddling at the bar before he set a glass by her hip. She’d just upgraded the ‘tool a couple of months before, with one of the new physical printers to build tabs into the ports. The pad was still holding a charge. Hesitating before she committed, Ace gave Jader a side glance. “I can’t guarantee this isn’t gonna light something up as soon as I give it some juice.”

He held her gaze for a minute and then twitched his shoulder to his ear in a shrug. “Let’s live.”

She held her breath and plugged in the tab. The connection made, it took a fidget here and a minute of tapping and….the info spiraled across her HUD. It was meaningless to her, a massive amount of text and numbers in neat rows. The map she recognized; the city around the old capitol, still a reasonably high rent district. She caught a familiar word or two but not enough without sitting down to puzzle it out. The numbers weren’t money...old style Earth dates or coordinates, maybe? 

She sat back on her heels and waited to catch Jader's attention.

He was watching something unfold on the vidscreen across from him, his face losing it’s careless expression and turning dark. 

She glanced up. Nothing on the floor feed looked unusual but on the door…

Nickto was gone.

Sirens started to shriek, muted by the sound dampers in the Loft, but the flash of lights was picked up in the surveillance.

No one reacted. Cops burned past here all the time and the Reds had enough fingers inside that Sleek never got raided, no matter who found out about the back rooms.

The lights continued to flash, the sirens howled. 

Jader’s lined eyes widened at something Ace missed on the screens and she tensed to spring, shoving the ‘pad into a thigh pocket and started to draw her gun. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulder. “Send me what you found.”

Bootsteps thundered up the stairs and Ace watched as two more guards, normally on the floor and wearing the slashed, tight clothing that would let them blend with Sleek’s crowd, punched through the doors. The guards in the room converged on the dias as she finished transferring the data. 

“Cops on the door, Jader! They’re about to…” 

On the floor feed, dancers scattered and there was a strange flurry on the screens as spinning lights hit the shattering glass as the front doors were shoved open. Two of the guards ran across to the hidden door to open and clear the scram tunnel. 

“Take them,” Jader jerked his head to Terra and the girl who was clutching his arm, as panic started to break through her drugged haze. Ace knew the guard who grabbed Terra and the girl; Marta shot her a glance over her shoulder as she hustled the pets into the lowly lit tunnel. She tipped her head to Jader and Ace scowled but nodded. 

Screams erupted from the front room below them. She raised an eyebrow at Jader, watching him as he started to pace. Jay hovered near the tunnel door, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to run or stay.

The bark of guns froze Jader in his tracks. “You. “ he pointed at the last of the guards. “Go to the door and keep them out, shut the blast door. I’m blowing this room behind us.” Then he locked on Ace.

“Get me out.”

She hesitated for a second before she pulled her gun and headed for the hidden door, pushing Jay in front of her. And then grabbed his hoodie so he didn’t crash down the sudden stair that appeared in the blue light. She could hear Jader tapping something into his omni.

The stairs wound down and back before the scram took them behind the kitchen and she took a minute to slide through the door and toss the pad into the ice crusher as they ducked through. The door to the kitchen led to a split off, one that led to the alley and another, deeper into the warrens of the block. She pulled up and waited.

“Garage,” Jader growled.

Jay stumbled forward but muttered over his shoulder. “Jader, boss, what the fuck is going on? Did we miss a payment?”

“No. Not sure. Could be...no, Rada would never dare.”

Rada was Jader’s second. She’d always seemed to Ace to be perfectly happy to run the thieving side of the Reds, leaving the politics, the protection, and the enforcement to Jader. But things might have changed while Ace had been gone.

"There." The door to the alley cut was a rusty purple in the light. And locked from the outside. She shot a glance back at Jader and then Ace yanked Jay backwards, much to his squawking disapproval. Sticking her omnitooled hand to the door, she examined the scrolling data. There were patterns in the set up, ones she could pick out by instinct and, in seconds, she had the lockdown lifted. 

An alarm flared up on Jader’s wrist and he twitched his fingers across the interface.

One breath. Two.

A buffet of sound and air poured down the tunnel. Even muted by some distance, the sudden wave ruffled the tangled curls spilling down the left side of her face. Jay cringed away from it, one arm across his face, protectively.

The Loft...and maybe the whole upper floor of Sleek, would be a smoldering pit. She’d helped lay the charges a couple of years ago herself, under his watchful eye. She heard him breathe out a sigh.

"Gotta go." Ace held up a hand and carefully pushed the door ajar, to peek around. God, she wished she had her hoodie from the break room. The air was damp and frigid as it rushed in, sending a chill down her spine. And her hair was gonna pick up the light. 

Or not. Usually there was one streetlight still working at the mouth of the alley but it was out. Or blown. It was almost pitch black between the buildings and she stepped out slowly, trying to force her eyes to adjust.

Their goal was in the other direction, a dumpster painted with splash of red, not designed enough to even be called a tag, just a spatter. She could just see it in the light that spilled from the door. She pushed it open wider and jerked her head. “C’mon. It’s clear.” 

It was a risk ducking through here, but she was counting on the sludge of oil from the kitchen, the stink of urine and the occasional rat corpse to make enough of a noise to bury a quick passage from the bots that would try and sniff them out later.

She walked backwards, Jader’s omni sending a puddle of light around their feet, just enough to keep them from stumbling into foul smelling puddles of icy water and filth. They were almost there.

A grunt drew her attention to a round silver disk flying towards her and she pushed Jader down, leaving Jay to fend for himself and had just enough time to clench her jaw as a fizzle of electricity flooded over her. Weak, it was still enough to make her ears ring and her hands shake as a pair of the city police darted into position, making the usual noises about being D.C. patrol and having the right to shoot, even as a flare bot flooded the alley with light.

“Fuck.” Jader scrambled to his feet and surprisingly, helped Jay up as well. “Take them out.”

She couldn't take her eyes of the threat but she swore at him, anyway. “Fucking Christ.”

“Do it!” He roared and she tried to clear her eyes as one of the cops shouted down the alley. 

“Hands where I can see them!”

She flared her omni with a dark red decoy and a shot- rubber maybe not metal- whizzed out past her side. 

Squinting against the floodlight from the drone, she squeezed the trigger. An accelerated slug tore through one cop -just his shoulder- and then a second towards the other one, just behind him. Her own shots weren't loud but it was still a rush of sound in the narrow passage. A roar in her ears.

A muscle flexed in her cheek as blood spurted, the second cop dropping instantly, sprawled limply over the squawking body that struggled beneath the weight in the sudden darkness as the lighted bot fell still without a controller. 

_An artery._ Nothing did that except a severed artery. She’d hit him in the neck. Instead of dodging, he'd dropped to cover his partner. 

_Fuck, why?_

She hauled a breath in and forced herself to move. “To the left,” she jerked her head. “We’ve got maybe five seconds.” Shaking the lingering fidgets out of her fingers from the shock grenade, she swallowed down the salt taste of blood in her mouth as the other two squeezed in behind the dumpster that smelled like someone’d been dumping fish guts and shit instead of the paper it was labelled for. 

A wrinkled, faded sticker clung to the wall, hidden in grime and the shadows and she smacked her hand to it, feeling the whirr of a reader underneath her palm of a reader. A heartbeat later, a panel slid open, nearly silent on well kept tracks. She hustled her tag alongs from behind the stinking container and into the tunnel. 

Behind them, a spasm of movement at the alley mouth turned her head as she pushed the button to shut the panel. Shouts. Running feet. Someone had found the cops. 

Their footsteps echoed along the floor in the silence as they hustled, Jay’s breath starting to wheeze and Jader starting to limp, and Ace winced. Jader hadn't had it upgraded with the sound dampeners he’d put into the club proper. They were taking a chance that no one would hear them scrabbling along like rats to a trap. The dank scent of mold flooded her nose, like a trip to the basement under the Home. 

The garage had a direct connection to the club but odds leaned that the cops might have had time to sweep it and then cover the door, thinking no one would be able to slip past them. Marta should have been smart enough not to take the pets that way. 

But the meet up, a wider hollow of a room lit from a few translucent panels on the ceiling, was empty when they got there. The floor was clean, except for some undisturbed dust and mildew crawling along the floor tiles. 

Jader swore but pushed Jay forward into the room. “Get the ladder.” He swung around to keep his eye on the tunnel as Ace pressed in.

Jay walked over to the wall and stared up at the rolled up escape ladder. “Can’t reach.”

“Jesus.” Ace tucked her gun back into the holster and knelt down by the wall. “I’ll boost you.” She ignored the nasty, slick wet still on the bottom of Jay’s thin sneakers as he stepped into her hands and then up to her shoulder before she pushed him up to catch the bottom rung, gritting her teeth at the twinge of pain. His weight was enough to haul it down and as soon as he dropped to the side, she scrambled up.

There was another panel, and she pressed her palm to the reader again. It slid aside and she barely dropped her face to avoid the mud and oily water that spilled into her hair and down her back. Jay made a disgusted grunt beneath her. She gritted her teeth against a shiver and looked back up.

The panel had revealed a manhole cover and she fixed her fingers into the holes and pushed. Nothing happened. With a huff, she climbed up another couple of rungs trying to get enough leverage to barely wedge the heavy metal disk up and shove her left hand into the opening.

It pinched and she couldn’t help the hiss as she shoved her other hand through and finally was able to lift and shove it to the side. The cover ground across the pavement, letting the sound of distant traffic and the wind rush in. Ace didn’t count on the luck that traffic noise would cover the metallic scrape, though, and hauled herself up and out of the hole, rolling to the side against a parked car for cover before standing. 

She spun slowly on her heel. No one in sight.

Jader stuck his head up. 

“Looks clear.”

Leaving Jay to scrabble up behind them, Jader strode to the sleek grey sky car just to their left. The lock responded to his thumbprint, the door swinging up and open and he slid into the back. Ace crawled across to the driver’s seat and pressed the ignition as Jay settled in beside her and strapped in, his eyes wide and his pale brown skin clammy as he panted. She dialed up the heat trying to shake the chill that had sunk into her bones, sent all her joints stiff before she shifted into drive. 

The spiral of the garage had a main shaft but just past the elevators was a narrow maintenance shaft. The slim built sky car just fit through but she held her breath as they squeaked past the entrance rails. 

A few minutes of upward spiral took them above the building. The hazy, low hanging clouds hid the buildings off to their left and there was no sign of cops up here though she could see one dark vehicle hovering over Sleek’s smoking roof two buildings away. Sirens whooped in the distance as emergency vehicles swarmed in to deal with the lingering fire and a few drones making rounds. In a heartbeat, they merged into the flow of traffic, before the police bot that was just circling around could spot them. 

They drove for a few minutes in silence before Jader growled, “Take us to Rada’s.”

Jay had finally caught his breath from their run but his eyes went wide as he realized what had been clear to Ace since the doors were blown. “They followed the ‘pad, Oh God, Boss….I’m sorry I…” 

Jader’s laugh was sharp. “You two stumbled into jam, darlings, never mind. Whoever they sent after Ando’s must have been dense, didn’t realize breaking the ‘pad wouldn’t wipe the data.” Jader waved his omni display, the orange light highlighting his face with demonic shadows. “This is shipments, all the places and times. This is delivery info for when the cops ship their drug stashes to be destroyed.” 

He leaned across the console to reach out and grab Jay by the ears and pulled him closer, kissing him square on the mouth while Ace watched in the rearview with dead eyes. Jader met her gaze with a smirk and twisted to lick her on the cheek, a faint hint of liquor and something meaty on his breath.

“I know what you're _thinking_ ,” Jader mocked in a sing-song tone right next to her ear. “You think it’s a _traaaap_.” 

She twitched a shoulder and hung a right turn. The scrape on the back of her hand was shiny in the reflected light of the city. It stung as she flexed it.

“And maybe so but a tasty one, far too yummy to resist.” His voice went icy as he released Jay and shrugged. “You're gonna get me a plum, Ace, and make up for the Asta. And _all_ the rest of it.”

She blinked slowly, her eyes on the heads up display, laying the city out on a grid below her. Her response was so quiet, she wouldn’t have thought anyone could hear over the thud and shriek of the traffic outside. “Might as well.”

“Yeah, it’s not like you have anywhere else to go, right?” She could see Jay’s interest perk up at the barely buried taunt but Jader settled into the plush leather of his seat, smiling at the orange glow of the data display. 


	3. first bridge

The taxi hovered beside him as he took in the area, doing a threat assessment before he strolled on. 

“Mac, I don’t wanna judge or anything but you sure you want me to leave you here?”

Commander Anderson turned back to the woman, who looked genuinely worried for his safety. “It’ll be fine. I have a...friend who lives around here, promised I’d look her up next time I was in town.”

“A friend.” The taxi driver looked skeptically at the neatly dressed soldier and then back at the dingy, wet street just shaking off the evening’s storm and trying to dry out fitfully in the weak sunlight. Most of the businesses were open, but there weren’t patrons coming or going. There was a cluster of people down on the street corner, waiting for a transport maybe. “Okay, mac. Your funeral, I guess. You score down here, though, you better have all your jabs up to date.”

His “friend” had been pretty vague about her address, just shrugged and told him if he needed to contact her to ping the omni but he’d had no luck with that since he’d been back in the Sol cluster.

He’d been gone longer- a lot longer- than he’d intended trying to track down the remnants of Kahlee’s trouble. 

But there’d only been one message from her waiting when he’d hit the relay, delayed from his usual mail pick up by the obscured tracking information she’d scrambled. A short, blunt voice message, with a breathless sound to her low voice that said she might have been running and hadn’t given up the cigarettes long enough, yet.

“Hey, uh, Anderson. I got a little trouble, might hafta duck out. I’m uh gonna be back, though.”

That had been almost three months ago and the tutor he’d arranged hadn’t seen Ace since.

She’d apparently been doing well, hadn’t been late once, hadn’t shirked. Just seemed a little distracted, Matthews had told him, that last time. The tutor had gone to the diner they’d arranged as a meeting and there’d been a cup of coffee poured and still steaming on the table and a server who thought a scrawny kid with red hair had been there a few minutes before. He’d gone back every week but she’d never been in again. Matthews had offered to return the fee, but Anderson had waved him off. “At least you checked. That was the deal.”

He glanced up at the street corner again, the old sign post plastered with flyers. 10th street. Ace’s stomping grounds. 

He’d tried a dozen times to nail down her actual name, some idea of where she came from. A last name, even. She spoke in the drawl that most of the locals did, so he took her at her word that she’d come from there. But there was no record of an Ace in the system, not that he’d expected to find one.

He saw a sign flicker in the gloom, advertising hot food and he pulled up the collar of his heavy all-weather coat against the chill early spring breeze. “All Come In.” Well. It was a start. 

The rich smell of braised meat and garlic, with a sweet scent of corn greeted him in a warm rush as the door cycled to let him into the airlock. All Come In was a plate lunch joint and Anderson paid for the tray upfront, pointing to one warming rack and the next until it was loaded with rich looking, saucy food. A pile of rice, a wedge of cornbread and a small bowl of pudding rounded out the tray. There were eyes on him, mostly friendly. A couple of people he figured for cops, looking at their shoes. The lady who’d ladled the cabbage dish onto his tray might have been less than friendly but she just pointed out the pepper sauce when he asked. There was a low buzz of not quite conversation. A laugh between the server and a more familiar patron. 

The restaurant wasn’t busy, the remnants of a late morning shift grabbing a hot lunch before they headed to bed. At least he figured that’s why they were open. He found a seat on a plastic bench and set his tray on the blue checked vinyl cloth pinned to the table top. 

He was down to his pudding when the woman got to his table and folks had started to ignore the newcomer. The air shifted when she’d come in from the back, patrons taking notice. This was maybe the owner. 

He was very polite when he said, “Ma’am, this is really good pudding. Banana, right?” 

“Mmm-hmm.” She topped up his coffee and a murmur stirred through the patrons. This was not a table service sort of joint, he’d got the feeling.

She was...old. Older than him by a good half century, he’d guess, from the wrinkled face and slightly hunched frame. She was wearing a long sweater coat and there was a gleam in her dark eyes behind her green framed glasses, despite the age showing. 

“Your idea of fun, working that recruitment center, taking our good kids out to space so they don’t come back?”

And she knew who he was. He raised his eyebrows. “No, ma’am.” 

She plunked the carafe down and sat slowly down opposite him, as if she didn’t really have the habit of sitting during the day crowd. The murmur picked up and then silenced when she shot a glance back at the counter. 

_Power._ Maybe not by outsider standards, but yeah. This was her place and she was queen. “I didn’t realize I’d been noticed. We didn’t make a whole lot of progress while we were here. They’ve closed up the center for a while.”

“Mmm-hmm.” He swallowed back a laugh. Sounded like his mother when he’d come in late from “studying.”

He set his cup on the table and reached for the holostill he’d tucked into his coat pocket. 

She kicked him under the table and glared fiercely. He had to bite his tongue not to shout but he got the jist. He left the picture where it was.

“Those kids; they get ideas. They get big ideas and then we don’t see them again.”

“Better than the life they’d live here though, don’t you think?”

She looked at him over the tops of the green frames before allowing, “Maybe. Maybe for some it’s too late.” 

“Oh.” Some of what he’s been worrying about must have crossed his face. 

“Not like that no. Just hard to climb from the bottom if the bottom’s all you got.”

She eyed him hard and pushed herself up and then smiled, almost flirtatiously. “Son, been a _long_ time since the Navy rolled through here. A decade or so ago, we’d have had that fun. Don’t you be such a stranger, now.” 

He laughed and she nodded appreciatively when the attention drifted from them and she shuffled back to the kitchen. The coffee carafe was still sitting on his table. He drank off his cup before he refilled it, palming the note she’d tucked underneath it into the coat pocket. 

Anderson was a block down when he decided the cops that followed him out weren’t just conveniently walking the same direction. He paused at the corner as if deciding his next step and turned to meet them with a smile as he adjusted his cover. And his coat collar open to reveal his rank tabs on the inside flap. He'd worn civs, thinking he'd look less out of place. But he'd hedged, in case he needed the authority.

“Can I help you?”

They halted a safe distance away. One of them, a tallish woman with her hair pulled back in a neat braid, spied the red triangle to the left of his tabs and realization flashed across her face. Her hand touched her partner’s elbow. “Uh, no. No, Commander. Just wondering if you needed help finding someone. Got someone AWOL you looking for?”

“Nope. Just in the neighborhood. Ate here a few times while I worked in DC. Now I’m just waiting for my car.” He lifted up his omni.

“This is a bad place to be official, man. Might not flash that kinda credit, too much, either.” The man was shorter and blunter. 

“Well, I appreciate it. Not the first bad place I’ve found myself.” The car hovered into the street and he released a breath. Didn’t really need a confrontation in public. “That’s my ride, got a date with an admiral uptown. Sure don’t want to miss it.” He’d borrowed the cafe owner’s drawl but he didn’t figure she’d mind. He gave them a wave, opening the door to the waiting taxi.

They stayed back as he slid in and let out a breath.

The eyes looking back at him from the front were suspicious. “Gotta destination, text didn’t say?”

In reply, he just popped his credit chit into the slot and opened the note. In neat letters on a thin sheet of paper from a restaurant supply, it read: _**Her luck ran out. Club Sleek, Ando’s, Chlor’s Steak House ~ Des**_

“Yeah, yeah. Sorry, in a little bit of a hurry. You know Club Sleek?”

The cabbie paused as the chit loaded and then shrugged. “Yeah, I know it?” 

“That direction.” The cops were still watching as they pulled away, one of them talking into a comm. 

It was only a few blocks over but Anderson could see the charred ruin of broken walls when they were still a street away. Construction cranes were clearing debris. “Keep driving like we were heading uptown.”

“No problem.” The soft brown eyes glance up at him again. “It went up a couple months ago. New Year’s. News report said some sort of screw up with fireworks.”

 _Damn it._ He didn’t want to ask, but...“Casualties?”

There was a pause. “...you mean, like, dead folks?”

Anderson grunted an affirmation.

He could see the dark shoulders shrug. “Yeah. some party kids, some of the druggies who ran the place. A cop they said was an off duty trying to rescue folks.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You know them Reds ran Sleek? That why those cops followin’ us, man? You one ‘a them?”

He’d hoped driving past without stopping wouldn’t have been too much of a give away, but there was clearly something deeper going on. “It’s fine. Take me to K Street, the Systems Alliance Branch, there. Cops ask you about me, just tell them the truth.” 


End file.
